McDonald Decision Changes Little, Gun Control Still On the Move

This decision does not fundamentally change our continued need to fight to preserve and advance our right to keep and bear arms.

In the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito stated, “We made it clear in Heller that our holding did not cast doubt on such longstanding regulatory measures as “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” Id., at ___–___ (slip op., at 54–55). We repeat those assurances here. Despite municipal respondents’ doomsday proclamations, incorporation does not imperil every law regulating firearms.

What Justice Alito and the court is saying is simple: your right to keep and bear arms is fundamentally guaranteed so long as you abide by the state and federal laws which restrict those same rights.

In the end, some of the worst gun control may be struck down. In some cases, it may only take a few months. Other cases will grind through repeal after repeal. More supreme court cases in 2-5 years are all but guaranteed.

Meanwhile, anti-gunners will seize on every upheld state law as an opportunity to pass new gun control and they will respond to every defeated gun control law with new legislation designed to continue their anti-gun crusade (as congress did with the gun-free school law after it was struck down and the District of Columbia after losing in the Heller case).

Even anti-gun groups like New Yorkers Against Gun Violence are trumpeting the ruling and pointing out that wording of the ruling means, “your [Second Amendment] rights can be restricted.” Read more